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Pretorius
|origin = South Africa |operation = South Africa |leader = Rowan Bosch |appearance = Iqiniso |affiliation = Office of State Security |mo = See below |victims = 15 killed |members = 3 }} "You cannot punish these men. They're protected forever." -Curtis Miller Pretorius was a secret covert operations unit responsible for the torture and murder of fifteen people on behalf of the Office of State SecuritySo named in the show. The actual name of the South African secret service in 1989 was the National Intelligence Service. It was named the Bureau for State Security between 1969 and 1980., the secret service of Apartheid South Africa. It appeared in Iqiniso. Background Pretorius was formed by three OSS operatives (Rowan Bosch, Armand Smit, and Noah Coetzee) as a last ditch attempt to save apartheid. On February 5, 1989, the group ambushed Constable Sarah Miller while she was on patrol duty in the Azaria District of Johannesburg. Coetzee wanted to shoot her, but Bosch said that the killing should look "more Zulu", and Smit stabbed her. The body was then staged to look like an umkovu, a zombie-like creature in Zulu folklore. Miller's murder was a false flag operation used to retroactively justify the creation of the group and the torture and murder of anti-apartheid activists, who were collectively blamed for the attack. As part of the deception, Coetzee selected a young man named David Lubbe, who was arrested and confessed to Miller's murder. Lubbe was later murdered in prison. One year after the end of apartheid, in 1995, Bosch, Smit, and Coetzee voluntarily confessed to the torture-murders of fourteen anti-apartheid activists before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In exchange, they received amnesty, their military and criminal records were expunged, and they were allowed to keep their identities secret.In real life, all of the confessions before the TRC were public. Bosch moved to Pretoria, Coetzee to Bloemfontein, and Smit to the U.S. state of Georgia, where he founded a construction business and married an American citizen named Camille, with whom he had a son. In 2015, immediately prior to the events of Iqiniso, Bosch developed terminal cancer and decided to tell the truth of Miller's murder to her brother Curtis. He also provided him with documents that proved the sincerity of his confession. Iqiniso Miller lobotomizes Bosch but keeps him alive in an abandoned mining area outside Johannesburg, disguising and arming him so that he will be shot when the police find him. He then kills and stages the bodies of the biological children of Bosch and Smit in Azaria, but keeps Smit's adoptive son Brandon alive in the same area so he can relay the truth of Miller's murder when he is rescued. Miller then goes to Coetzee's family home in Bloemfontein and forces Coetzee to confess while holding his pregnant daughter at knifepoint. However, he is found by the IRT and the South African Special Forces in time and they rescue the Coetzees. Coetzee and Smit are arrested for Miller's murder because although they received amnesty for the fourteen murders they committed while operating as Pretorius, the same protection did not extend to Miller's death. Smit is subsequently extradited to South Africa to stand trial. Modus Operandi After stabbing Miller, the three members of Pretorius scratched her skin and uniform with a rake, covered her body in white clay, divided her tongue longitudinally, and drove a spike on her forehead before abandoning the body in Azaria. The anti-apartheid activists were tortured and killed by unknown means. Profile There was no official profile of Pretorius or any of its individual members, since the IRT was focused on Curtis. Real-Life Comparison Pretorius is loosely similar to C10, a secret counterinsurgency unit of the South African Police that tortured and killed hundreds of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa and neighboring countries in the 1980s. C10's existence was uncovered in 1989 by its first commander, Dirk Coetzee, who shares a last name with the character of Noah Coetzee. Like Rowan Bosch, Coetzee claimed to be regretful and later contracted cancer. Both Coetzee and his successor Eugene de Kock confessed before the TRC, but while Coetzee received full amnesty, de Kock was sentenced to 212 years in prison. The 1989 false flag murder of Miller in Johannesburg may have been inspired from Charles Alfred Zeelie, a South African police officer who confessed before the TRC to have committed two false flag attacks in Johannesburg in 1989: the shooting and hand grenade attack against the Flying Squad HQ in Brixton, and the bombing of a police vehicle. Before his confession, both attacks were blamed on the anti-apartheid African National Congress by the South African government. Interestingly, Zeelie did not carry the attacks on behalf of C10, but of yet another death squad, the Civil Cooperation Bureau. Members *Rowan Bosch . Portrayed by an uncredited actor. *Noah Coatzee . Portrayed by Sean Cameron Michael. *Armand Smit . Portrayed by Arnold Vosloo. Known Victims *1989: **February 5: Constable Sarah Miller **February-December: Fourteen unnamed anti-apartheid activists Notes *Pretorius was named after the South African city of Pretoria, according to the CBS website. Ironically, Pretoria itself was named after a man named Pretorius. Pretorius was also named after the Praetorian Guard, a specialized security unit in ancient Rome; and a mixture of common Afrikaan surnames; also according to the CBS website. Appearances *Season One **Iqiniso References Category:Beyond Borders Characters Category:Criminals Category:African Criminals